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		<header>
			<h1>Vocal lessons!!</h1>
			<p>Day 01489: <time>Thursday, 2019 April 04</time></p>
		</header>
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<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I can&apos;t quite remember most of my dream, but it involved sitting in what looked like a school cafeteria at a table with a babysitter.
		Apparently, the church had been abusive to me in some way.
		I&apos;m not even sure what way.
		The babysitter asked if they&apos;d been pushing &quot;iniquity&quot; to make me and other feel bad about ourselves, which I confirmed.
	</p>
	<p>
		They then went on to explain how their babysitting service could help get my children out of such an awful situation.
		I listened with interest, though now that I&apos;m awake, I can&apos;t remember what was said.
		At the end, they mentioned that there was some catch, but again, I don&apos;t recall what it was.
		I responded that it was fine, as I don&apos;t have any children anyway.
		The babysitter got very ticked off.
		Apparently, it was &quot;rude&quot; of me to let them explain everything about a service I knew I would never make use of.
		After making that claim, they stormed off.
		Usually though, people enjoy explaining what they do.
		Also, I was genuinely interested and wanted to hear.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="cord">
	<h2>Power cord</h2>
	<p>
		Soon after I woke up, my laptop stopped receiving power, as indicated by the colour of the battery power metre in the corner of the monitor.
		The thing was still plugged in though.
		I first tried unplugging the cord from the laptop and replacing it, then I tried unplugging it from the wall and replacing it.
		Nothing.
		So I went and turned on the bedroom light.
		Surely the power was just out, right?
		Nope.
		They light came on as usual, so I turned it back off.
		Ugh.
		I was going to have to make two more trips to Eugene today.
		I knew about the one for the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting even before I went to bed last night, but now I&apos;d need to make a trip to check the recycling centre for a laptop cord.
	</p>
	<p>
		Yesterday, I was exhausted.
		I figured out why before work, too.
		In seven days, I&apos;d made eight bike trips from Springfield to Eugene and back.
		I had my final exams and the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting on Thursday, I took one trip to find the church the baptism would be held in and another to find my lost ring on Friday, I went to attend the baptism on Saturday, I tried to check out the hair-removal place on Monday but they were closed, I checked out the hair-removal place and made an appointment on Tuesday, and on Wednesday - yesterday - I made it to said appointment.
		Normally, I only have to make one or two per week.
		Now add the two trips today, and that&apos;d make ten trips in eight days.
	</p>
	<p>
		It used to be that my legs couldn&apos;t handle all this work.
		If I tried to take a second bike trip to Eugene, my legs would get too tired on the way back, and I&apos;d have to get off the bike and walk for a few stretches.
		Now, my legs stay strong and I can keep going much longer.
		I hadn&apos;t hit my legs&apos; limit yet.
		My legs have the strength, but they still need to get energy from somewhere.
		While my legs don&apos;t get tired so quickly, drawing all that energy still seems to make me, as a whole, tired.
		Very tired.
		I desperately wanted a nap before work, but instead, I waited for the missionaries that never showed.
	</p>
	<p>
		Desperately, I tried separating one end of the cord from the transformer in the middle of the cord, as it&apos;s detachable at that spot, then reattaching it.
		This time, the cord started working.
		I guess it just jiggled loose or something.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="hair">
	<h2>Hair removal</h2>
	<p>
		It&apos;s hard to tell for sure after only one day, but it seems to me that my beard and especially my moustache haven&apos;t grown as long as they normally would have.
		They do seem to have grown though, which confuses me.
		If the treatment was effective, they shouldn&apos;t have grown at all.
		The hair follicles should be dead.
		The hair shouldn&apos;t grow until the next wave of hair follicles arrives, which would be separate hairs from the same pores.
		But if the treatment was ineffective, the hair should grow as normal.
		I see no room for a middle ground.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m just being impatient though.
		I&apos;ll have a better idea of what&apos;s going on in the coming week.
		If the hair continues to grow, I&apos;ll know the follicles didn&apos;t die, while if it doesn&apos;t, I&apos;ll know they did.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		The missionaries answered several questions today.
		First, the issue of there being eighty-four people in the quorum of the seventy.
		They quorum of the seventy is seventy in name only.
		The quorum is called that because Jesus called his quorum of the seventy that when he was on earth.
		That said, my understanding is that Jesus&apos; quorum was called that because it actually had seventy people in it.
		If the name is so important, then because of what the name represents, the number of members is also very important.
		But I guess the church doesn&apos;t see it that way.
		As to which quorum the general bishopric answers to, it&apos;s none of them.
		I don&apos;t know if I misunderstood or it they misexplained, but there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line.
		The bishopric actually answers directly to the first presidency.
		When it comes to the potential symbology of the groupings of three I mentioned before, I was sort of right, but also very wrong.
		It sounds like there may be some such symbology in the first presidency&apos;s structure.
		However, all other groups of three are reflections of the first presidency, making them a reflection of a reflection of the godhead&apos;s trio, at best.
	</p>
	<p>
		Next, we talked about titles.
		The title of &quot;Elder&quot; is directly tied to the priesthood.
		That means that it&apos;s directly tied to being a man.
		Women aren&apos;t allowed to hold the priesthood in this church, due to the church&apos;s sexism.
		However, women are able to hod the title of &quot;President&quot; in certain positions.
		For example, the three members of the Relief Society Presidency are women and have the title of &quot;President&quot;.
		I really have a hard time grasping the concept of anything being separate yet somehow equal, but the title of &quot;President&quot; is also held by the leader of the entire church.
		It seems like the top dog would have the highest title, and both men and women are able to hold this title.
		It might be that &quot;Elder&quot; is a lesser title, so women are excluded from holding a specific lesser title.
		However, of course, because women are unable to hold the priesthood, they&apos;re unable to attain most of the leadership positions, including <strong>*all*</strong> of the top fifteen leadership roles.
		As for me ...
		I pointed out the divide between &quot;Brother&quot; and &quot;Sister&quot;, and pointed out that I didn&apos;t think the church has a &quot;Sibling&quot; title.
		The missionaries&apos; solution was to ignore titles and for me to ask people to just call me &quot;Alex&quot; without introducing myself with any title.
		For all practical purposes, that&apos;d work.
		It doesn&apos;t address the actual problem of there being no place for me in the church, but it would take care of the day-to-day.
	</p>
	<p>
		The missionaries can see I&apos;m not buying into the sexism that they don&apos;t seem to see as sexism.
		So they started pushing the separate but equal thing.
		Separate <strong>*isn&apos;t*</strong> equal though.
		That&apos;s my whole point!
		They say different responsibilities are delegated to the different sexes, but people aren&apos;t choosing which they want to be a part of.
		The whole problem is that based on your genitals, you&apos;re forced into a particular set of role choices.
		And that&apos;s not okay.
		A male may want female roles or a female may want male roles.
		Anyway, they tried to rephrase some things.
		Men, or more accurately, males, hold authority and stewardship over the priesthood.
		Somehow, this doesn&apos;t translate into males holding all the power in their minds.
		Women, or more-accurately, females, are said to bring souls into this world, while the males try to get the souls back out safely.
		I pointed out that males and females have to work together to create more people though, and they didn&apos;t really have a good response for this.
		They said that females still act as hosts for the babies as they develop.
		They can&apos;t do that without the males though to impregnate them.
		In other words, the females have to do most of the work, but they&apos;re not able to actually do this without the males agreeing to get the process started.
		Meanwhile, the women aren&apos;t able to limit the ability of the males to use the priesthood in a similar fashion.
		I also learned that mothers are able to receive holy revelations on behalf of their children.
		And while females can&apos;t bestow blessings directly by laying their hands on someone, they can pray for blessings to be bestowed by Jesus.
		The missionaries pointed this out as a part of how females can still &quot;access&quot; the priesthood and the powers it provides even though they can&apos;t &quot;hold the priesthood&quot;.
		This makes it less sexist, I suppose, as females are still able to harness the supernatural power of Jesus like the males can, but it doesn&apos;t even close to get rid of the entire problem.
	</p>
	<p>
		Also, apparently, I somehow managed to attend the wrong baptism.
		I want to the correct place and I was there at the correct time, but I saw the wrong person get baptised.
		The missionaries had meant for me to see an elderly person get baptised; someone that <strong>*wanted*</strong> a baptism and wouldn&apos;t have been fighting it off.
		They apparently were a former member of the church that had been excommunicated a while back, but had made amends for whatever it was they&apos;d done and was ready to rejoin the church.
		So they were getting rebaptised.
		What the missionaries had intended to show me was a drastically different situation than what I actually did end up seeing.
		Instead, I saw an unwilling child forcibly baptised.
		If there is a god directing events, why would they have shown me this instead?
		I can only assume that a good directing evens would have <strong>*wanted*</strong> me to see this; that they <strong>*wanted*</strong> me to see the forced baptism.
		Random chance and multiple baptisms in one day are a much better explanation for what happened, but if a god is at work here, it seems like they&apos;re directing me <strong>*away*</strong> from this church.
		As for the separate doors to the baptism pool, which is apparently called the baptismal font, it&apos;s all about segregated restrooms and changing rooms, and has nothing to do symbolically with the baptism.
		I thought the doors lead directly to the baptismal font, but they actually lead to the changing rooms and restrooms, from which the baptismal font can then be accessed.
		It&apos;s still segregation, but it&apos;s a type of segregation quite prevalent in my country, and isn&apos;t something specific to and symbolic in the baptisms.
	</p>
	<p>
		Next, we discussed General Conference, a meeting held by the upper leaders of the church and broadcast to everyone else.
		It&apos;s coming up this weekend, so now&apos;s the time to discuss the implications.
		It seems General Conference is held biannually, on the first weekends of both April and October.
		It&apos;s basically a series of talks given by members of the general authority, except that sometimes people from outside the general authority will give talks too.
		For example, I think they said the child of one of the members of a quorum of the seventy, or maybe it was the child of one of the apostles (I forget which), gave a talk once even though they had no authority themself.
		Anyway, the speakers are to give advice and council based on revelations they&apos;ve received about various matters.
		They promise various blessings if you follow their advice, too.
		It&apos;s like bribing the whole church, except that the payout&apos;s imaginary, though all the members believe in it with all their might.
		Also, the missionaries said that changes to how the church is run can be made during General conference, but no doctrine may be changed.
		There&apos;s also the Tabernacle Choir that seems every time, and in the opinion of one of the missionaries, this is the best choir in the world.
	</p>
	<p>
		There are five sessions during each instance of the conference.
		Three happen on Saturday, during the morning, afternoon, and evening.
		The other two occur on Sunday, during the morning and afternoon.
		In April, the one on Saturday evening is given by the apostles, and focuses on responsibility and the priesthood.
		In October, the one on Saturday evening is given by the leadership of the Relief Society, and is instead addressed to the women.
		Again, there&apos;s this separation of what information is meant for which sex.
		Also, I&apos;m not clear on the Relief Society even is, but it appears to be something only the women have.
		Again, segregation.
		During each conference, the first and second counsellors of the First Presidency, as well as all twelve apostles, give at least one talk during one of the five sessions.
		The First President, on the other hand, gives at least one talk during <strong>*each of the five sessions*</strong>.
		A new First President may give the talks the former president meant to give before dying, if the former First President dies before the conference.
		At first, I figured that this was solely due to the speech being the word of the godhead.
		It needed to get out even if the one originally receiving the revelation had left this world.
		If the new First President had something else to say, and he probably does because he was probably an apostle that got promoted and therefore had already planned at least one speech, he could probably get another time slot anyway.
		There&apos;s probably no limit to the length General Conference can go, but even if there was, if the lead prophet of your religion tells you to listen for fifteen more minutes longer, you probably do it and be happy for the privilege of doing so.
		But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that this was also a matter of feasibility.
		The new First President would have planned at least one talk, but would need to give at least five.
	</p>
	<p>
		The missionaries say that the best way to prepare for general conference is to formulate questions.
		If you don&apos;t have the questions, the answers won&apos;t stand out to you.
		General Conference is a time for receiving revelation, so get your questions ready, and the revelations will be provided by the godhead through the church leaders.
		There seem to be several ways to access the information provided during the conference, too.
		The church is doing everything it can to get it&apos;s holy word out to those that want to hear it.
		It sounds like it gets broadcast on television, though I couldn&apos;t swear to that.
		It also gets released on the Web, both in video and transcript form, as well as sent out on the radio.
		Furthermore, it gets translated into over ninety languages.
		Clearly, great efforts are put into making sure as many people have access to the information from the talks as they can manage.
		One of the missionaries also said that their personal motto (or something like that) is that if revelation isn&apos;t recorded, revelation is lost.
		It makes a lot of sense.
		Knowledge in general follows this same principle.
		Unless it gets recorded, it&apos;ll fade away.
		Obviously, that applies to the talks given at the conference.
		They also said that recording what comes to you while you watch (or listen to, or read, et cetera) the conference is important.
		Not everyone does it, doing it&apos;s not really a specifically-advocated practice as far as I can tell, but they said that it&apos;s good I keep a journal, and said that they&apos;ve got a specific General Conference journal themself.
	</p>
	<p>
		I was shown a video of a short talk given by a former president during the last years of his life.
		Much of it didn&apos;t particularly jump out at me, but one part did.
		Everyone in the church seems to push getting a testimony.
		You need a strong testimony to fall back on when all evidence opposes what the church says, so you can continue to believe.
		This talk took it a little further.
		First, it stressed the importance of having a testimony by saying that the testimonies of others will only get you so far.
		You need to have your own reason to believe.
		But also, you need to keep that testimony vital and alive.
		Don&apos;t let it die away.
		Additionally, I&apos;ve been assigned to either watch this one video or read the transcript on how to receive revelation.
		If revelation is real, this should help me receive it.
		I still have that other video they assigned for me to watch too that tries to justify sexism in the church and claim it not to be sexism.
	</p>
	<p>
		I wasn&apos;t going to deal with either video today, but by the end of the day, I decided I sort of had to.
		The one on revelation should be read before General Conference, which means today or tomorrow.
		The talk didn&apos;t seem to say much of interest until the second half.
		The author (Er, speaker? I was reading a transcript, here.) said Jesus is incredibly willing to reveal his mind and will.
		So why doesn&apos;t he then?
		I mean, supposedly, there&apos;s personal revelation.
		But if this was actually the will of Jesus, why is the church so fractured?
		Why are there so many sects of Christianity alone, let alone the rest of the Abrahamic religion family tree?
		A bit late, he talks about how meetings of the First Presidency and the apostles work.
		They all stater their thoughts and opinions, and don&apos;t reach a verdict until they&apos;re in unanimous agreement.
		He then makes the claim that unanimous agreement is the Holy Ghost&apos;s way of getting the message through.
		Seriously?
		That&apos;s what he&apos;s going with?
		The spirit couldn&apos;t simply tell them all to begin with?
		And unanimous decision couldn&apos;t be reached after they&apos;ve discussed and reasoned a while without a metaphysical being guiding them?
	</p>
	<p>
		After that, he gets into how individuals can receive revelation.
		First, you need a quiet place that you can regularly go.
		Check.
		I&apos;ve been praying in my quiet bedroom, which is a room I go quite frequently.
		Next, you need to humble yourself before Elohim.
		It&apos;s kind of hard to humble yourself before a being you don&apos;t even believe in though.
		So that&apos;s not something I can check off.
		Next, pour out your heart to Elohim.
		I&apos;ve tried that, and gotten nowhere.
		And next, ask him for answers and comfort.
		I&apos;ve been asking for answers to no avail.
		As for comfort, I don&apos;t want some vague &quot;comfort&quot;.
		If there are actions that actually change things, and those things make me more comfortable, then that&apos;s good.
		But discomfort in terrible situations is an important thing to spur one into action to fix the situation.
		Being comforted is a bandage, not a solution.
		Next, pray about your concerns, fears, weaknesses, an longings.
		I feel like I&apos;ve been doing that lately.
		Well, except my fears.
		What am I afraid of?
		I get scared as I bike by people at night.
		I guess I could pray about that, but I doubt that&apos;s even close to what is meant.
		I bike faster, get away while they make no attempt to pursue me, then everything&apos;s fine.
		No help from supernatural beings needed.
		And finally, listen.
		I&apos;ve been doing that lately as well.
		From there, he says to write down your feelings and thoughts, then act on what you feel prompted to do.
		So ... I guess I should write about what I feel after prayer more than I do?
		I can do that.
		Normally, I feel nothing, or I feel like my knees aren&apos;t feeling well from my kneeling, or something along those lines.
		There&apos;s no divine inspiration in there, but I guess I&apos;ll write whatever comes to mind, and when I feel like getting off my knees, I&apos;ll do that.
	</p>
	<p>
		So to put it shortly, I need to keep doing what I&apos;m doing, mixed with what I had been doing but stopped, then additionally record whatever I think and feel, even though most of it&apos;s inane.
		Additionally, I need to act on said inanity.
		There&apos;s also some other things I could do, but those would be counterproductive if they even lead to anything.
		For example, as stated, praying for comfort is a bad idea, just in case it were to be granted.
		If you don&apos;t want something, you probably shouldn&apos;t ask for it.
	</p>
	<p>
		After that, daily reading of the Book Of Mormon helps (the other three holy books just aren&apos;t as holy, I guess), as does regular time commitments to temple work and family history work.
		Seriously, what&apos;s with this church and their genealogy fetish?
		I&apos;m curious as to what temple work they&apos;d want me to do as well.
		I guess I&apos;ll ask the missionaries next time I meet with them.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="voice">
	<h2>Vocal lessons</h2>
	<p>
		I spent much of yesterday and a bit of today searching fruitlessly for local vocal lessons.
		As always, I&apos;ve turned up nothing.
		The thing about my hair removal search was that no results from my city, Springfield, showed up aside from the one place that has no <abbr title="light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation">laser</abbr> technician right now, but results for Eugene, the conjoined twin city of Springfield did show up.
		I was reluctant to go that far out, but I always knew it was an option should something closer not be.
		But the same doesn&apos;t apply to my vocal lesson searches.
		I&apos;ve never once managed to find a vocal teacher in either city.
		And despite including the city names in my searches, options in very distant parts of the country that I can&apos;t reach come up instead, along with places that don&apos;t even tell where they offer their services.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today, I reached out to a local transgender group via email.
		I&apos;m not quite clear on what their function is.
		I think they help transgendered people find other transgendered people?
		And it looks like they offer services to people that are being abused by others for being transgendered?
		Whatever the case, it seems like there&apos;s a reasonable chance that they&apos;d know where to find a vocal instructor.
		Their website indicates that the entire group is made up of transgendered people, so there&apos;s a good chance that some of them would know just because they&apos;ve probably taken lessons themselves.
		Outside their jobs, as human beings with personal experiences, they might have the information I&apos;ve been seeking.
		I figured even if it leads nowhere, and even if they don&apos;t so much as respond, it doesn&apos;t hurt to ask.
		They&apos;re only open on Fridays though, and only for two hours per week.
		<del>If I can work up the energy, I need to try to find the place tomorrow, assuming they haven&apos;t written back before then.
		Which they probably won&apos;t have, due to being closed.
		I don&apos;t have time today to try to find the place beforehand.
		From the map, it doesn&apos;t look like it&apos;ll be too hard to locate though.</del>
		This is going to be a tenth trip and a ninth day.
		When can I just get a day of rest?
	</p>
	<p>
		<ins>Good news!
		They actually responded incredibly quickly, especially considered that they don&apos;t seem to be open today.
		So I can skip the trip there.
		Even better, they did in fact know of a place: the local university where I&apos;ve got to go every time I need a pair of exams proctored.
		At this school, there are students that are learning to be voice coaches.
		To aid in learning to teach, they&apos;re practising by offering lessons at a highly-discounted rate.
		Not only is this place well within reach, but I don&apos;t need to save up to afford the lessons.
		Well, I guess I&apos;ve already saved up, but I don&apos;t need to dip into said savings to get the lessons I need.
		Tomorrow will still be a tenth trip in a ninth day, as I&apos;ve got to get to the school for information and to sign up, but that still prevents me from needing to take a tenth trip the next day.
		Unless something else comes up, which would have previously been an eleventh trip, and so on.
		I save a trip, one way or another.</ins>
	</p>
	<p>
		<ins>There are group lessons and individual lessons.
		From the sound of it, you might need to be taking the individual lessons to have access to the group lessons, but you don&apos;t need to attend the group lessons to take the individual lessons.
		The group lessons are gratis.
		The individual lessons are on a sliding price scale, but cost no more than $35 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr> per session.
		I was planning for something a lot more expensive.
		I am more than happy to pay the full $35 <abbr title="United States Dollars">USD</abbr> price tag, and if there&apos;s any mention of what my means are when deciding the price, I will state just that.
		I&apos;m hoping to be able to fit both into my schedule.
		The contact in the group suggested that group therapy can be embarrassing for some, but I&apos;d be more than happy to see I&apos;m not the only one struggling, and maybe even pick up more tips.
		And I imagine the one-on-one lessons will help me understand what I&apos;m doing wrong better than the group lessons.
		So I&apos;m guessing the individual lessons will help more with results while the group lessons will help more with morale in the mean time.
		The group I wrote to also sent me a telephone number and address.
		The telephone number is obviously useless to me, if you&apos;ve read much of my journal at all.
		But the address will help me track down where on the campus I need to go to register and attend.</ins>
	</p>
	<p>
		<ins>After getting that response, I couldn&apos;t stop smiling and laughing.
		I&apos;m another step closer.
		Reaching out to this group was definitely the right decision.
		I don&apos;t know how much time these lessons will take away from my coursework, but they should keep me from feeling as crappy while I work on it, so I should be able to work on it faster.
		So I think I&apos;ll manage.</ins>
	</p>
</section>
<section id="cassette">
	<h2>Obscurity Trillogy</h2>
	<p>
		As I headed out to the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting, I checked the mail.
		I had a package key.
		I had a package?
		Did I order something?
		I certainly didn&apos;t <strong>*remember*</strong> ordering anything.
		I like to know what&apos;s in packages before I open them though, so I checked the name on the return address.
		Needlejuice Records.
		I recognised that name; it&apos;s the record company Marc With a C said the Obscurity Trilogy cassettes were offered through!
		I&apos;d ordered something after all!
	</p>
	<p>
		I was already heading to the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting though, so there was no time to do anything with the cassettes, save for check the box over for a download code.
		Supposedly, there was a download code included for a commentary on their content.
		Just out of reach, inside the cassette case, there was a slip of paper slightly visible under the J-card.
		If that was it, I wanted to take the cassettes out of their plastic wrap to retrieve it.
		But if it wasn&apos;t, I wanted to leave the cassettes save in the extra layer.
		I mean, to me, these things are decorative.
		I don&apos;t have a cassette player.
		I decided to risk it, and my hunch was right.
		I&apos;ll check out the commentary when I have time, but not today.
	</p>
	<p>
		Actually seeing the J-cards made the online album art make sense.
		I mean, the art was clearly the J-card, unfolded, but it mentions Unicorns Get More Bacon and &quot;Half Serious&quot;.
		There is no &quot;Half Serious&quot; album; the second album of the trilogy is Half Serious, Half Kidding.
		I guessed the title got shortened for space reasons.
		However, there&apos;s no Obscurity mentioned.
		The full third album didn&apos;t get any mention.
		I guessed that because &quot;Obscurity&quot; is also the first past of the name &quot;Obscurity Trilogy&quot;, so the album simple didn&apos;t get mentioned and shared the name of the trilogy as its &quot;mention&quot;.
		It seemed very sloppy and unprofessional though.
		Once you see the actual J-cards though, it makes perfect sense.
		The thing to note is that there are J-cards, plural.
		There are two tapes, which I realised, but it hadn&apos;t connected to me that there would be two J-cards and that what I saw of the album art was thus incomplete.
		SO on one card, you have Obscurity and the Half Serious part of the second album.
		On the second card, you have the Half Kidding half of the second album along with Obscurity.
		It looks much more professional when you see both, and is much more the level of the quality I&apos;d expect from Marc.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="photography">
	<h2>Photography issues</h2>
	<p>
		I forgot to check the date and time on my camera again.
		The time&apos;s still off from yesterday.
		The date&apos;s correct, but this evening photograph is timestamped as having been taking early in the morning.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="aftermath">
	<h2>Aftermath of the day</h2>
	<p>
		I found on the way to the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting that my legs were finally starting to give.
		I had to walk on this uphill segment.
		I&apos;m no longer capable of biking up steep hills for the time being.
		On the way back, I ended up having to get off and walk on a flat stretch too, as my legs needed a break from the biking.
		I guess biking and walking are different activities so my legs could still walk effortlessly even though they needed a break from peddling?
		I don&apos;t know how that works.
	</p>
	<p>
		I got home and stripped off my wet clothing (it rained on the way to the meeting), and found my pink underwear now has strange, dark spots on it.
		Trying to figure out what was up, I found the spots were a bit blue-tinted.
		The dye from my bluejeans bled into my underwear because of the rain!
		My legs are dyed a bit blue too, especially on the inner thighs.
		If I hadn&apos;t figured out what was up before I even saw my legs, I might have been a bit worried about hypothermia.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m nearly there.
		I didn&apos;t think I could get <abbr title="light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation">laser</abbr> hair removal and vocal lessons set up before the coming school term, but if tomorrow goes well, I&apos;ll have done just that.
		And I&apos;ll even have four days to spare!
		Three of these are work days and two of these days additionally involve errands in town, but I shouldn&apos;t need to bike to Eugene after tomorrow until the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting on Thursday.
		This will be the term of transition.
		Will I complete my transition the term ends?
		Most certainly not!
		But I&apos;ll get a great start.
		I feel much more at ease than I have for a while, even despite being exhausted.
		Maybe I can even find time for a relaxing, scented bath on Sunday.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="prayer">
	<h2>Prayer log</h2>
	<p>
		After praying, I mostly just saw random pictures in my mind while my eyes were closed.
		None of them were relevant to anything.
		One was of my fingernails flaking apart and taking the nail polish off with them.
		That&apos;s been a problem for me a lot lately.
		Some of my nails are getting pretty thin near the ends.
		I also saw metal sauce cups being stacked.
		That really has nothing to do with any.
		Other than that, the images I saw were vague colours and shapes.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t think any of that means anything.
		If I close my eyes, I lose visual input, and my overactive brain starts building its own pictures.
		The flaking nails are on on my mind, so they showed up in the feed.
		I&apos;m not sure why I thought about dip cups.
		They really aren&apos;t relevant to my life.
		I mean, I have one, but I have several other dishes too.
		The dip cup doesn&apos;t particularly mean anything.
		As for the colours and shapes, those mean even less than the previous images.
	</p>
</section>
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			Copyright © 2019 Alex Yst;
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			If for some reason you would prefer to modify and/or distribute this document under other free copyleft terms, please ask me via email.
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